Korea: Myeongdong
Myeongdong reminded me a lot of Ximending in Taiwan. Mobs of young people, shopping options all over the place...yup, just like Ximending:
I didn't do any major shopping, though I did buy a belt for my sister. What I did do, however, was snack. First we found this old lady making these sugar disks:
Apparently this is a couple-y thing to buy. For fun, CK and I bought one together:
Each sugar disk is stamped with a design. You're supposed to try to break out the design in the middle without cracking it. If you're successful in doing so, your relationship will supposedly last. There were various designs to choose from. We picked one with a bunny, or as I like to call it, a tooth.
CK broke it. Looks like we're just not meant to be.
The sugar disk itself tasted like burnt sugar. Sweet, but with a bitter aftertaste. Kinda like our relationship.
Walking around and squeezing through crowds takes a lot out of a person. We took a little break at Smoothie King:
Real Korean, right? Haha...I ordered a small Pineapple Pleasure:
After that little respite, it was back onto the streets. I absolutely wanted to try some dragon's beard candy, so I forced CK and her sister to stop at a stand making it:
The clear counter allows you to see exactly how they make the candy:
Once the guy saw that I had my camera out, he insisted on making a new batch and starting from scratch. He went through the entire spiel, complete with a silly call and response routine. It was the funniest thing seeing such a buff, manly man making candy and chanting such silly, cutesy things in his deep, manly voice. I gotta hand it to him though. He really knew how to put on a show. By the time he was done, he'd attracted quite a large crowd.
Basically, dragon's beard candy begins with a piece of hard honey. The honey is pulled and worked through glutinous flour until it resembles really fine silk threads.
The final product looks a lot like a cocoon:
One box of 10 cost 5,000 won or $5.
You can choose what filling you want. I went with peanut:
According to the manly guy, dragon's beard candy taste the best frozen. I can attest to that.
On the way into Myeongdong, we passed by this cart:
The egg bread smelled really good, so we swore that we would get one on our way out:
It's an egg bread, so I don't know why I was so surprised by the fact that there was an entire egg in it:
On our way to the metro station, we came across this little corn dog stand:
I just couldn't walk away without a potato dog:
Guh. How crazy awesome does that look?
The best part of the dog turned out to be the potato exterior. It was fresh out of the fryer, hence the ultra crispiness. What I didn't like was that under the potato layer was some kind of bread that didn't taste all that good. I ended up nibbling off all the potato and tossing the rest. If only the corn dog had been made of only potato and sausage. That would've been heavenly.
All in all, quite a productive food day. We did try to go into a doggy cafe (a cafe where you can play with dogs, duh), but the smell was too overwhelming for CK, so we were there for a grand total of three minutes before we turned tail and ran. That was kind of a fail. But a funny one. CK's face was priceless.
Ah, good times.
I didn't do any major shopping, though I did buy a belt for my sister. What I did do, however, was snack. First we found this old lady making these sugar disks:
Apparently this is a couple-y thing to buy. For fun, CK and I bought one together:
Each sugar disk is stamped with a design. You're supposed to try to break out the design in the middle without cracking it. If you're successful in doing so, your relationship will supposedly last. There were various designs to choose from. We picked one with a bunny, or as I like to call it, a tooth.
CK broke it. Looks like we're just not meant to be.
The sugar disk itself tasted like burnt sugar. Sweet, but with a bitter aftertaste. Kinda like our relationship.
Walking around and squeezing through crowds takes a lot out of a person. We took a little break at Smoothie King:
Real Korean, right? Haha...I ordered a small Pineapple Pleasure:
After that little respite, it was back onto the streets. I absolutely wanted to try some dragon's beard candy, so I forced CK and her sister to stop at a stand making it:
The clear counter allows you to see exactly how they make the candy:
Once the guy saw that I had my camera out, he insisted on making a new batch and starting from scratch. He went through the entire spiel, complete with a silly call and response routine. It was the funniest thing seeing such a buff, manly man making candy and chanting such silly, cutesy things in his deep, manly voice. I gotta hand it to him though. He really knew how to put on a show. By the time he was done, he'd attracted quite a large crowd.
Basically, dragon's beard candy begins with a piece of hard honey. The honey is pulled and worked through glutinous flour until it resembles really fine silk threads.
The final product looks a lot like a cocoon:
One box of 10 cost 5,000 won or $5.
You can choose what filling you want. I went with peanut:
According to the manly guy, dragon's beard candy taste the best frozen. I can attest to that.
On the way into Myeongdong, we passed by this cart:
The egg bread smelled really good, so we swore that we would get one on our way out:
It's an egg bread, so I don't know why I was so surprised by the fact that there was an entire egg in it:
On our way to the metro station, we came across this little corn dog stand:
I just couldn't walk away without a potato dog:
Guh. How crazy awesome does that look?
The best part of the dog turned out to be the potato exterior. It was fresh out of the fryer, hence the ultra crispiness. What I didn't like was that under the potato layer was some kind of bread that didn't taste all that good. I ended up nibbling off all the potato and tossing the rest. If only the corn dog had been made of only potato and sausage. That would've been heavenly.
All in all, quite a productive food day. We did try to go into a doggy cafe (a cafe where you can play with dogs, duh), but the smell was too overwhelming for CK, so we were there for a grand total of three minutes before we turned tail and ran. That was kind of a fail. But a funny one. CK's face was priceless.
Ah, good times.
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